The road to Cumbernauld Colleges studio installation was long, winding, and led (eventually) straight to Audient's door.
When the £250k development finally got the go-ahead, the planning and design work started in earnest. The focal point of the development was to be a flagship studio, based around a Pro-Tools HD2 system. Various options were discussed as a front end to the system: A Yamaha DM2000 as well as a Digidesign Icon control surface.
The studio was going to be, at the end of the day, a teaching studio. It had to be flexible enough to allow students to see the benefits of working in the digital domain with Pro Tools, without compromising the ability to track and mix with the benefits of an analogue console with some (extremely nice) outboard gear. There was only one logical answer: Audient ACS8024.
Coupled with the HD2 system and three 96I/Os, the students have three ways to work:
- Analogue: Using Pro Tools effectively as a tape machine, Sending 24 outputs from Pro Tools to 24 tape returns on the console
- Digital: Using all the mixing options available within Pro Tools, accessed from the Command 8 incorporated neatly into the console, using only two channels as a stereo output from Pro Tools
- Hybrid: A mixture of the two methods above!
This sounds perfectly logical and straightforward, but the design and installation was a painstaking process with 101 minor modifications along the way. The good thing was, no matter how many changes were made to the equipment list, the patchbay design and the studio layout, the ACS8024 was flexible enough that it could accommodate almost every conceivable way of interfacing the system.
In the end the equipment list was finalised, to be housed in two custom designed acoustic booths supplied by Studiobox in Germany:
| Console: | Audient ACS8024 |
| Recording system: | Mac Pro, Protools HD2 |
| Audio interfaces: | 3 x Digidesign 96I/O |
| Control surface: | Command 8 |
| Monitoring: | Genelec 8050A |
| Outboard (Channel): | Neve 8801 Avalon VT-737SP |
| Outboard (Dynamics): | TL Audio 5052 Empirical Labs EL8-XS Empirical Labs Fatso |
| Outboard (EQ): | Empirical Labs LilfrEQ Neve 8803 |
| Outboard (FX): | TC Electronic M3000 TC Electronic M1XL |
The verdict?
After the installation was complete, with excellent support throughout from Stirling audio and Mediaspec, the success could only be judged after asking the following questions:
Does the console and the studio do everything the lecturers need to effectively teach the students to industry standard?
Are the students able to quickly learn how to utilise the console and the studio to its full potential and produce some great results?
The answer to both of these questions? A resounding Yes!
Since the studio has been completed, the studio has been utilised almost 100%, not only during the day when classes are getting the benefits of working with the system, but also in the evenings when the advanced students are able to book the studio to work on their portfolios. The feedback from all staff and students has been resoundingly positive, the standard of student work has vastly improved, and most importantly the learning experience of the students is infinitely enhanced.
The console is used to teach students from access level, where the students may have no prior recording experience, to Higher National Diploma level, where the students are producing recordings to a professional standard.
The Audient console provides the perfect centrepiece to the learning environment. Its logical, ergonomic layout combined with excellent routing flexibility and transparent pre-amps make it the perfect teaching console. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, the blue cut switches look really cool.
The only problem? Now I want another one for our second studio!
Ronnie Gilmour
Curriculum Manager
Audio and Media Technology
Cumbernauld College
